Accumulated Notes Regarding Cyndi Ellis / The Palette System

AKA The Cyndi Manual

"The Paula Edition," AKA Version 4.0

By Andrew, AKA, "The Plague Doctor"

PlagueDoctr#8357 on Discord

Changelog:

Version 4.0:

Upcoming Changes (Version 4.5):

1: About the Manual

1.1: What it's For

Originally, I had the idea for writing this "Cyndi Manual" for the staff at Vive, so that they could take advantage of everything I knew about her alters and their conditions, and try to come up with more effective treatment plans than if they had to discover everything about Palette's System from scratch.

While that version went mostly ignored, I've continued to keep notes about my interactions with Palette and any new developments that could prove useful to professionals treating them.

This version is aimed at Cyndi's current therapists, Bonnie, Rodney and Paula, although I also encourage it to be freely shared amongst anyone else who sees Cyndi on a professional level (including with whoever runs her group therapy sessions). It includes a number of updates since the last major rewrite, including the splitting off of another Alter, but anyone who has read any previous versions ought to find most of the information here familiar.

1.2: Who I Am.

Let me make this completely clear. I am not in any way a mental health professional. I am not pretending to be a professional. I am not attending any formal psychology classes. I'm not a student. I have not, at any point, tried to fool Palette into thinking that I'm a professional. I'm just a friend of Cyndi's, who happened to have an interest in psychology, and have traditionally found it interesting to dip my toes into topics like what consciousness is, and how human perception can go wrong.

I might half-jokingly refer to her as my "patient," but this is mostly because of my Discord screen-name.

1.3: How I met Cyndi

I was introduced to Cyndi by a mutual friend of ours named Jay, who also suffers from DID, and seems to be much less self-aware about this fact. The two of them mutually belonged to the same online fandom but otherwise had little in common, from what I could tell, besides the presence of DID.

Living in Australia, it has been somewhat difficult to keep in regular contact with Cyndi, thanks to the difference in time zones, but since April of 2020, I have done my best to support her, encourage her personal growth and development, and have watched with some satisfaction as her local and online support group slowly started accumulating members.

1.4: The Palette Testing Server

Cyndi let it slip to me that she had dissociative Alters around late April of 2020. They were really embarassed about it at first, but they quickly started showing relief that they'd be able to finally drop the "Cutesy Cyndi" act, and let more of their real personalities show. They effectively re-introduced themselves to me as the System of alters, Palette, and this is the name I'll use to refer to them for the rest of this Manual.

When I told them about the Discord bot "Tupperbot," which is designed mostly for roleplay, they quickly discovered a similar bot, "PluralKit," and created their own Discord server (a requirement to make use of these bots) so that each Alter would be able to communicate with me using their own proxy account (explained later). Palette and I have communicated almost exclusively on that server since then, since it's an easy way for the Alters in her system to differentiate themselves, and express internal conflicts that might otherwise stay confined to Palette's head.

1.5: The Question of Whether the Colours and Cyndi's DID are/is "Real."

I've always been fairly open to the idea that there is no "Palette," and that Cyndi is just faking or role-playing for various reasons. I still don't think it's impossible for Cyndi to be faking, but the more I have come to interact with the Palette system, and the more DID-related articles, papers, videos and personal anecdotes I consume, the less and less likely this seems to become.

She is regularly accused of making up problems, physical or psychological, for attention; this happened at Vive, much to my disappointment, but the strongest accusations along these lines tend to come from her own family, especially her father. This will be explored later on in this document.

There are a number of unusual features about Palette's case, and I have also given them their own sections below. It should go without saying however, that I don't think these apparently uncommon characteristics invalidate the Alters' identities, or are suggestive of "Cyndi" simply inventing her conditon based on things "she" read on the Internet. If sympathy, attention or pity were really "Cyndi's" goal, there would be far, far easier ways of obtaining them, other than convincingly faking a System of extremely distinct personality states and keeping track of what each Alter is supposed to be able to remember, over the course of nearly a year, and keeping the same pretense consistent across multiple interpersonal relationships.

This is why, for the rest of this Manual, I intend to refer to Palette as though the validity of their DID and the existence of their Alters is a largely settled question.

2: Overview of the Palette System

This section isn't really intended to contain any information that I think is going to directly help to stop Palette's self-harm problem, but I do think that knowing who each Colour is, how they behave and interact with one another could be useful in treating their individual psychological problems. Besides, later sections which directly deal with the self-harm addiction are probably going to heavily reference elements of each Colour's personality and history, so I've positioned this section before all the others.

2.1: Glossary of Terms

Palette: The System's collective name for themselves. I will use this name, as well as they/them pronouns, throughout this manual, whenever I'm talking about Palette, the group.

Cyndi: The public face of the Palette system, which they use for shallow, everyday social interactions, and talking with people who don't believe that she really has DID, or that her Alters exist (i.e: her family). In this Manual, I will use the name "Cyndi" to refer to the body with that legal identity, when referring to events that happened before these different personality states manifested, or when speaking from the point of view of people who deny her DID, or don't know that she has the condition.

Colour: This word should be treated as being synonymous with "Alter," or more specifically, what I've seen referred to in the DID community as an "Apparently Normal Part." It seems like when they first became aware of each other, the Alters of the Palette System were not able to immediately think of names for themselves or each other, and chose to go by colours instead. Even after some of them chose more conventional names, they kept using a noticeably colour-themed naming schema when deciding what to call themselves, and so the term "Colour" gradually acquired its current meaning within their System. I will capitalise the term Colour throughout this document, when referring to an Alter, to avoid confusion with the more ordinary use of that word.

Proxy: The PluralKit and Tupperbox Discord bots effectively allow a single user to have mutliple false "accounts" which they can post messages from. While useful for text-based roleplay, both of these bots seem to have become massively popular among DID Systems, since it's an easy way for alters to speak "as themselves," without actually requiring them to register multiple Discord accounts. The "accounts" are called Proxies by PluralKit, and are differentiated from a regular user by a small bot label, which can be seen in the various screnshots I've included in this Manual. The bots cannot be made to work in Direct Messages, and must be invited to a server to make use of them.

Co-Consciousness: A fairly standard concept among DID communities, but I thought I would include it here for completeness; more than a single Colour can be "awake" at any one time, and it's actually fairly unusual for only a single Colour to be active in Palette's mind, unless it's very late at night. It's not uncommon for one Colour to be talking and carrying on a conversation while another has control of the hands, and is doing something else entirely.

Mint Leaf: A sort of distortion of the world around her, which Palette experiences during psychotic episodes. It's also the name of an entity that they perceive during these episodes (or perhaps, perceived, since it's apparently been a long time since this entity was last seen.) Both the distorted reality and the Entity are phenomena that happen to the entire System, and have sections dedicated to them below.

Red Noise: Not technically considered a Colour, Red Noise does not seem to be an Apparently Normal Part. Palette and I have been unable to quite work out what she is, but she appears to be a kind of posession-form Persecutor Alter, and behaves as though she's the manifestation of Cyndi's self-harm addiction. She may, or may not be an Emotional Part (contrasting with the other Colours being Apparently Normal Parts). It's also possible that she might be a creation of Palette's psychosis. Noise has her own, fairly extensive chapter dedicated to her below.

The Rot: An ever-present, chronic, seemingly psychosomatic pain felt in the pit of Cyndi's stomach, or around her heart. It's been described as a tight squeezing, or as feeling like her organs are rotting away, hence its usual name. This sensation is experienced by all Colours, all the time, to varying extents. Cutting themselves is the only thing that provides some temporary relief. It's true nature is something I still haven't worked out; it could just be withdrawal from the pleasurable high created by cutting, but there are other potential causes, which I hope to explore in much more detail in future versions of this Manual.

2.2: History

If Violet (or Lavender, or Coco) has not already shown you the System's art journal (which I recommend that you ask about anyway), the rough timeline is this:

Around 2014, Cyndi was doing very unwell mentally - she was starving herself, filled with self-loathing for being different in some way (trans? Or something else?), and apparently believed that other people would also hate her for being different in that way.

This places her at around 11 or 12 years old when, in 2015, she decided she'd kill herself. She was saved at the last minute by a text from her friend Marz, and she abandoned her suicide attempt when she realised the mistake that she was about to make.

But this seems to be the point where Cyndi's conscious awareness split into Palette (this is certainly the moment when the various Colours believe that Cyndi's consciousness split, though the possibility remains that they could be mistaken). Everywhere else in this Manual, I've referred to that incident as ""The Split."

It seems that the Colours didn't really know about each others' existence for a while, but eventually the lapses in memory and the consequences of each others' psychological problems started building up. Since then, they've been taught to cooperate well enough to create a single, public-facing persona of "Cyndi," but this persona appears to be mostly a fabrication, with the Palette system remaining composed of nine very different individuals.

2.3:Individual Members of the System

General Notes

These are not intended to be complete descriptions of each individual member, but more of a basic overview, along with some notes regarding my experiences with each Colour. They're intended to give a rough overview of each Colour's basic personality traits, to provide an idea of how best to approach them individually, and to note anything about them I think could be worth exploring further.

Please note: Yes, yes, I'm aware the Myers-Briggs test barely has any predictive utility. This is why I'm slowly trying to get each Colour to take a version of the Big 5 test instead. However, the Colours had taken the Myers-Briggs test before they met me, so the results were already available.

Also Note: Since I wrote the first edition of this Manual, the Colour known as Violet has split even further into Chocolate (who goes by the nickname "Coco") and Lavender. They occaisonally re-form into a single personality though, so I have elected to keep Violet's section intact here.

Violet

Violet's Personality Results

Lavender

Lavender's Personality Results

Chocolate

Orange/Fox

Fox's Results

Yellow/Dandelion

Dandy's Results

Black/Blake

White/Whitney

Red/Rojo

Rojo's Results

Turquoise

Turquoise's Results

Grey/Ashley

Ashley's Results

2.4: Fusions and Splits

I originally gave this section only a small amount of detail, mostly bcause I didn't think the phenomenon was especially related to the self-harm problem, but also because there was a lot about it that I didn't understand. The latter is still true, but some of the Colours have clarified a few of my earlier questions, at least to some extent, so I'll include everything I know about the process of fusing/splitting within the Palette system, mostly for the sake of completeness.

2.4.1: Permanent Merging

Turquoise is the only example of this phenomenon so far. Since I've become aware of Palette as a DID System, Turquoise has never once broken apart into Sky and Emerald, and while I don't know if Turquoise herself has any hypotheses, I imagine that the main reason behind this event, besides their very similar personality "types" was the fact that whatever memories or emotions they may have been created to process had effectively been dealt with, and maintaining the mental barriers keeping them apart wasn't necessary any more.

Their fusion into one identity came completely out of nowhere, and also came with a feeling of near total amnesia, as mentioned in the previous section. Since then, Turquoise has regained acces to the memories of the Colours that she is made up of. However, it seems like she still doesn't really perceive them as hers.

I don't know whether or not future permanent merges like it would necessarily induce the same amnesia-like effect, but I do know that there are some Colours which are frightened of that happening to them, which is part of the reasoning behind their reluctance to pursue reintegration.

2.4.2: Temporary Fusions

Much more common are temporary fusions between Colours, which usually seem to happen when they're working closely with one another on something, i.e. when they're both working towards the same goal, or feeling similar emotions.

These fusions never last long, however. Invariably, one Colour ends up rejecting the other, because of some irreconcilable cognitive differences between them, and the fused identity falls apart along certain, seemingly predictable "seams." These are areas of cognitive dissonance or extreme disagreement between the Colours, which have repeatedly surfaced over the time that I've known them, and which seem unlikely to go away any time soon, without some kind of conscious deliberate intervention, and effort from both Colours in the pairing.

To give an example, Dandy and Ashley sometimes fuse again to become Rose. In this case, it's almost always Dandy that rejects Ashley (rarely, their identities separate again for other reasons), and this usually happens because Rose ends up having a thought which the Dandy part of her (for want of a better term) rebels against, finding it digsusting, creepy or monstrous.

Violet's "seams" appear to be a little more complicated than that, but to me, it looks like they revolve around the themes of whether or not Violet deserves to be loved, whether life is worth living, or whether it's worth doing difficult things, like resisting the urge to cut.

These temporary mergings between identities tend to happen gradually, over the course of a few minutes, without either Colour in the pair noticing that it's happening. Lavender has written a description of fusion which seems to describe the process as semi-conscious, and once the process begins, it tends to reinforce itself until some new cognitive dissonance forces those parts of Cyndi's mind apart again. Another Colour - I believe it was Turquoise - described the process in her own way, but for some reason, that conversation has been lost.

Fusing on command seems largely impossible, and so far, only Blake has shown the capacity to leave such a pairing whenever she wishes.

2.4.3: Fusion Table

Each temporary Fusion pair has their own name, which Turquoise took the trouble of cataloguing in the table below. I'm including this here just in case any such fusion happens in person, during a therapy session, or something like that.

Quoise's Chart

2.4.4: Uniqueness of the Phenomenon

I'm aware that there might be a great deal of skepticism about this whole fusion business, and I can definitely understand that, since I haven't ever seen references to it in any psychological literature (admittedly, I've read much less of it than I would like).

I've thought of a few possible reasons for this, and a couple of the other unusual features of her System, but suffice to say that I don't think this fusion of identities is grounds for dismissing Cyndi as faking for attention, as the staff at Vive appear to have done.

It's possible that DDNOS is a better description of Palette's condition, or that the increasing frequency of temporary fusions means that Palette's collective mind is gradually working though the issues that keep their identities separate.

It's something which merits more investigation, I think, though it shouldn't take priority over eliminating the Rot.

2.4.5: Unanswered Questions:

My personal goals with regards to Colour-fusion are as follows:

2.5: Red Noise

I've referenced Red Noise multiple times by now, and this is because she's rather central to the self-harm problem. Half of what perpetuates the addiction is the Rot, which will get its own section below. The other half appears to be Red Noise. But as with everything else in this Manual, that's only the impression that I've managed to form so far.

Still, this section contains pretty much everything I know about Red Noise so far.

2.5.1: Quick Overview

Noise seems to be the personification of the body's addiction to cutting. She is not as yet, considered part of the group of Colours which forms Palette; both she and the core group of Colours perceive Noise as something of an outsider, needing to latch onto another identity and "possess" them in order to speak and act.

She's been referred to as a "mental parasite," and this description isn't completely without merit. Mutliple Colours, notably Turquoise, have suggested that Noise doesn't really exist in the same way that they do - that she may simply be a product of addiction and psychosis. From what I've been told, Noise is unique in that she disappears when Palette takes their anti-psychotic medications, but I don't know if this refers to her voice and influence, or if it simply means that the stop hallucinating her being physically in the room with them.

In Violet and Lavender's art, Noise is depicted as an indistinct, shadowy, human-shaped figure wreathed in a substance that resembles black flames, and she's always drawn as floating in mid-air. According to Noise herself though, this is just an artistic rendition; she doesn't perceive herself as having a physical form at all, unlike the other Colours who each have their own distinct self-image. Instead, Noise prefers to see herself as borrowing the bodies of her "puppets." This might give some minor hints as to her true nature.

2.5.2: History of Self-Harm and Red Noise

It seems like Red Noise only started manifesting as a distinct entity around 2018, coinciding with Cyndi's earliest psychotic episodes. The System had struggled with self harm long before this, though initially, Rose was the only Colour who used to cut.

The cognitive dissonance that arose from this habit is what caused Rose to split in to Dandy (who initially rejected cutting), and Ashley, then only called Grey (who embraced the habit with a frightening passion).

Grey soon began to manipulate the other Colours into cutting as well, pretending to be their own internal narrative while co-conscious, using gaslighting and manipulation to get them similarly addicted. Eventually she stopped doing this, but by that point, the damage was already done. The entire System had become dependent on cutting by this point, and would suffer from Rot whenever they were forced to go without.

For this reason, Red Noise has called Grey "the prophet of her love" - a label which Ashley is none too fond of any more, since she herself has begun to try and stop cutting.

2.5.3: Noise's Goals

Her main goal seems to be to keep Cyndi cutting, and to help "guide" her in avoiding and ignoring the people around her who tell her that cutting themselves is wrong.

It might be that this isn't actually the case. More recent conversations with Noise suggest that perpetuating the addiction is secondary to her real goal, which is to keep the Rot at bay and prevent the suffering that it causes, by providing at least temporary relief, irrespective of the fact that the other people in Palette's life tell her that cutting is a bad way of going about this.

If Noise is to be believed (and I take everything she says with a grain of salt), she actually tried a number of other ways of getting the Rot to subside, but none of them worked. This included reaching out to friends, playing games for hours on end, experimenting with pornography, getting her into a relationship, remaining mute, getting into fights, and listening to music. Of course, before I believe this list, I would ideally want to confirm it with at least one other Colour, but this conversation, at least, has gotten me thinking that she might not be entirely malicious.

Noise herself doesn't seem to have any other goals besides "keeping Palette happy." She has no ambitions of her own, and seemingly no interest in experiencing ordinary, everyday life for herself. She doesn't show any interest in entertainment, food, interpersonal relationships or creative projects. In fact, she seems to view them as distractions from some imagined "ideal" life of pure, endless pleasure that Cyndi could feel if she was just able to cut all the time.

2.5.4: Personality

Noise presents herself as a loving, caring figure, wanting only to make the System "happy," and frequently suggesting to Palette that the people in her life who are trying to stop the self-harm addiction don't really know what she needs, and that Noise is the only one who actually understands them.

From the outside, of course, she comes off very differently. Controlling, possessive and dominant, she tends to speak with a tone of voice that suggests deliberate, calculated sweetness, or perhaps, that she is simply above her conversational partner, no matter who it might happen to be. I have compared her voice to a "soft dominatrix," and some of the Colours agree with that description, and some of her mannerisms seem almost like those of a cliche villainess, which I have my own guesses about (see the section concerning the true nature of Noise below).

There has been one interesting exception to Noise portraying herself as "always in control." It happened quite early in my friendship with Palette, when I engaged Noise in conversation for so long that she began to feel like her own individual - as though she no longer needed to possess another Colour to maintain her own existence. This possibility seemed to terrify her, partly because it would mean losing control of her "puppets," but also (apparently) because the prospect of truly existing, and being subject to the ordinary human condition, was frightening to an entity that perceives itself the way she does.

Despite not wanting to be a Colour, she has recently taken to impersonating them, using their proxies, trying to talk like them, and using their preferred Discord emotes. These attempts to pass herself off as someone else usually fail, but she should still not be underestimated.

2.5.5: Noise's Behaviour, Personality and Motivations

Noise spends almost all of her time focusing her attention either on the currently fronting Colour, or another who is co-conscious, either to try and make them cut, or to get them to fantasise about doing so. If one of the Colours has recently given in, Noise tends to disappear, though sometimes she does remain to converse (or gloat) over Discord, or voice chat.

Noise perceives the normal Colours as needing "help" in order to cut, seeing her behaviour as almost maternal, or protective. The fact that Palette is trying to give up the habit means, to Noise, that they need to be actively encouraged in their cutting, so that they can be "brave" enough to make more numerous and deeper lacerations, to ignore those who try to stop them from cutting, and to push past any fears they may have about continuing the habit.

If what she says is to be believed, Noise perceives cutting, not as self harm, but an expression of pure love and affection. On more than one occasion, she has criticised me and Palette's other friends for "depriving" her, and has suggested that cutting is something which is as vital to Palette as food and water is for ordinary people.

She seems to operate on a completely backwards sense of what most people would consider "good" or "virtuous." Her definitions of what constitutes "bravery," "potential," "sacrifice" and "happiness" seem twisted in on themselves, for the purposes of perpetuating the addiction.

For example, Red Noise has insisted that the damage caused by cutting is the price that must be paid for "happiness," and references the idea that in order to achieve one's full potential, there must be sacrifice. In other words, rather than demonstrating the virtue of delaying gratification and sacrificing present happiness for future prosperity, Noise's idea of bravery and potential is sacrificing the future for the present. To her, self-control and restraint appear to be enemies, which must be slain if happiness is to be achieved. It might be important to note that these conversations tend to happen when she's possessing Ashley - I don't know whether she would keep the same opinions if she was speaking through someone else.

Red Noise on Sacrifice

In a rather post-modernist kind of way, Noise has also proposed that there is no inherent reason why cutting for pleasure is bad, while other forms of indulging in pleasure are good. It's as though she perceives some hypocritical double-standard, and refuses to change her mind just because other people are trying to make Palette live by their standards. She has even compared cutting to other activities that can cause pain and harm to a body, like full-contact sports, or boxing. She argues that one of these activities being vilified while the other is celebrated makes no sense, and that the distinction between them is mostly arbitrary.

She's also suggested that the Colours only really try to stop cutting for other people's sakes, and that continuing to deprive them of cutting is akin to deliberately cutting off an ordinary person from food, water or air.

Noise Referencing Whitney's Anorexia

I honestly do not know whether she genuinely perceives things this way, or simply uses it as a justification to continue perpetuating her own existence, and the body's dependence on cutting. However, the more I learn about Cyndi's life and background, the more I think Noise's intentions are more or less genuine, even if her methods of making Cyndi "happy" are extremely destructive and maladaptive.

Noise has even suggested that, in a hypothetical scenario where the Rot disappeared, she would probably not mind the idea of becoming an Apparently Normal Part, and abandoning her current role. But she stresses that guaranteeing the System's "happiness" is more important to her.

Noise on the Possibility of Giving Up Control

2.5.6: Attacks

An "attack" is any situation where Noise focuses a significant amount of attention on one Colour in particular, trying to force them to cut by any means necessary.

They usually happen in the early evening, or late at night, and usually begin in the same way; an auditory and/or tactile hallucination which sounds similar to a waterfall or rainstorm, and feels "like television static," or pins and needles. In the case of the auditory hallucination, it tends to slowly grow louder, until it blocks out real sounds in Palette's physical environment, and in the case of the tactile hallucination, this feeling of "static" begins in one place, and eventually grows to envelop and "embrace" the entire body, as though Red Noise was trying to hug them.

Usually, attacks don't manifest any more intensely than this, but for Danelion and possibly Ashley, Red Noise seems to be a fully manifested presence - a hallucination that they can perceive as being in the same room as them. (Violet's art may give some clue as to what she looks like during these hallucinations, but as far as I remember, I haven't actually tried to confirm this.)Turquoise speculates that this is because Dandy has always been the most sensitive to psychotic episodes - something which I'll also cover in a later section.

Sometimes, in rare instances, she may take over the target Colour's entire personality, especially if I, or her other friends are actively trying to prevent Palette from cutting. Speaking through her chosen target, she can converse either via voice chat or text while still maintaining pressure on her target. It's not completely clear why she chooses to engage in conversation, but my suspicion is that it's part of an attempt to demoralise whoever is trying to stop her, and convince them that it's pointless, or even actively harmful to Palette, to resist Noise's will.

I'm not completely sure whether Noise choosing to retreat from an attack causes Palette's self-harm urges to disappear, or weaken. From past experiences, it seems like the urges are at the very least easier to manage after a retreat, but once again, this is something that I haven't really confirmed.

If Noise succeeds in her attack, Noise usually retreats, even in situations where she has seized full control of the body. Sometimes though, she remains in control, either to gloat, further demoralise Palette's friends, or simply to continue a conversation she thought was interesting.

2.5.7: True Nature of Red Noise

Exactly what Noise is is a subject that I've done a lot of speculating about, and still haven't reached any satisfying conclusions on. After my first few interactions, I thought she might have simply been a Colour that was not recognised by the others as a legitimate part of the System.

Later, I thought that she might have been some manifestation of a Jungian shadow, sustained and given a voice by psychosis.

Both of these seem to be wrong - my most recent hypothesis is that Noise falls into the category of "Persecutor" Alter, or is more similar to an "Emotional Part", as opposed to an "Apparently Normal Part." It doesn't seem to be that uncommon for some alters to take the form of demons, or evil spirits, and this is definitely what Noise has been described as by some of the Colours; subjectively, they feel like she's something alien and foreign, corrupting and possessing. All the art and writing that the System has produced about Noise depicts her in this way; a shadow, latching on from the outside and taking control.

Certain conversations that I've had with Palette have gotten me wondering whether Noise really is an unrecognised Alter, a maladaptive reward system personified by psychosis, or whether each individual Colour has their own "Noisy state," which manifests whenever the urge to self-harm arises. I have no idea how I could meaningfully tell the difference between these possibilities, but it might be useful to know if "Noisy" is just another emotion that the Colours experience, just like "Hungry" or "Tired," which has been given a voice and mannerisms by whatever is driving the body's psychotic episodes.

It's interesting to note that whenever Noise seizes control of Colour firmly enough to start speaking through them, she only seems to have access to that Colour's memory. She might remember the actions, thoughts and feelings of other Colours, but only from the perspective of her current "host." I think this gives some slight credibility to the idea I suggested above, but of course, I have no way of really confirming that.

Noise herself doesn't seem to care very much about her own nature; she sees herself as being there to do a job, and more introspective topics don't seem to interest her very much. This might change depending on what Colour she is "possessing," but it seems like a fairly constant feature of her personality.

That conversation I referenced earlier, in which Noise talked for so long that she began to feel more "real" was probably the closest she's come to truly thinking deeply about her own existence, and later references to that talk suggest that the emotions Noise most associates with it are loneliness, powerlessness and fear of the unknown. Whatever her real nature is, she seems almost afraid of becoming too person-like, and I'm not completely convinced that it's purely because she fears not being able to fulfil her self-proclaimed "caretaker" role.

Interestingly, Noise once speculated that she is the original Cyndi, with everything superfluous and unnecessary stripped away. I didn't believe this for a single second, but I definitely thought it was curious that she suggested it, since she usually seems uncomfortable with the idea of becoming too "real." It also says a lot about what Noise considers "necessary" in life, or to be a functioning person.

It's possible, of course, that even this attitude could be subject to change.

2.5.8: Possible Means of Dealing With Her

Figuring out what to do about Noise depends, I think, on having a better understanding of what she really is. While my earlier efforts were focused on thinking of ways to destroy or eliminate her, lately I've been thinking that it might be possible to work around her, or even secure her cooperation in looking for alternative means of dealing with the Rot, which, after all, seems to be the overwhelming driving force behind Cyndi's continuing addiction to cutting.

So far, I've managed to brainstorm the following means of lessening her influence, or stopping her from perpetuating the addiction altogether.

2.5.9.1: Psychotic Episodes

During our earlier conversations, Violet described the psychotic episodes the body sometimes suffers in great detail. I say "the body," because they don't seem to be isolated to any specific Colour, and while the System's DID persists after taking anti-psychotic medication, the hallucinations do not, so it's a pretty safe conclusion that they're a "hardware problem."

So far, I haven't actually explored the phenomena very much in conversation, but over the months that I've known them, I have witnessed a few variants of these episodes, and I'll try to relay what I know here.

Hallucinated glyphs

Since both Mint Leaf and Red Noise seem to be the same kind of "entity", I thought once that it might be possible that the two are aware of each others' "existence," and that they might subjectively perceive themselves as being related to one another, since they both appear to be products of the body's psychotic episodes. For the moment, it doesn't appear that they "know" each other, but I haven't really explored this in detail, and have never spoken with Mint Leaf, directly or indirectly, so I'm unable to verify things from its "perspective."

2.5.9.2: The Rot

During one of the longest Noise-attacks Dandy has endured (to my knowledge, she described a feeling which she summarised as being akin to her insides rotting away. While resisting the desire to cut, she whimpered that she "didn't want to be like this," that her insides felt rotten or dead, and that cutting is the only thing that can temporarily fix this sensation. She also mentioned that her heart hurt - that it felt as though it was being squeezed. I don't know whether this referred to her physical heart or if she was speaking more metaphorically, but since that conversation, I learned that this rotting feeling is universal among the Colours; they feel it all the time, to some extent or other, and cutting is the most effective way of making the feeling go away.

Violet Possibly Experiencing this Feeling of Rotting

It doesn't seem like the rotting feeling can be brought about on purpose, and it also doesn't seem like it can be controlled with anti-psychotic medication, but both these things merit further investigation. It also doesn't look like anything else alleviates this feeling other than self-harm.

According to Dandy, the feeling of rotting did not exist before Ashley got the other Colours addicted to cutting - at least she doesn't think that it did, but she doesn't seem to be able to remember clearly. This is suggestive of the idea that the rotting feeling is at least partially a symptom of self-harm withdrawal, and that if Cyndi can stay clean for long enough, the feeling will eventually lessen, or disappear completely. It's also possible that this sensation could be a leftover manifestation of narcissistic abuse suffered throughout childhood (a possibility that occurred to me after watching videos on the topic by Ross Rosenberg), but of course, I can't say so definitively - it's just a hunch. Perhaps it is Cotard's Syndrome, since that condition is apparently co-morbid with dissociative disorders and psychosis. The feeling could also be something created by Noise, to convince the System that it needs to keep cutting, or it could even be a symptom of a physical illness that's gone undiagnosed.

During that first conversation with Dandy, I was briefly reminded of Cotard's Delusion (in which a patient describes themselves as feeling dead or rotting) as she spoke, but quickly dismissed any connection, because the symptoms didn't seem as severe as Cotards's Delusion is usually described.

Apparently though, Cotards' can be co-morbid with other dissociative disorders so there may be more of a link there than I thought.

Even though it's not likely to actually be Cotard's, I think that investigating the Rot, from as many angles as possible (including the possibility that there may be a physical problem with Cyndi's body that has gone hitherto unexplored) is, in my opinion, of paramount importance. The Rot seems to be the central pillar on which the addiction to self-harm rests, and even though some residual addiction may remain afterwards, if the Rot were to be eliminated, I think the addiction would disappear not long afterwards (or at least, the very long clean streaks necessary to break the addiction would become much more bearable).

2.5.10: Post-Vive Developments

For reasons I can only speculate about, Red Noise started getting far more strategic and aggressive shortly before Cyndi's admission to Vive. This was especially noticeable during an alarming incident that happened not long after Ashley discovered that she actually could play the guitar. (I speculated about whether she could have inherited the skill from Rose, and that seems to have been the case).

Very soon after Ashley discovered this ability, there was a notably intense attack by Noise, who caused Ashley to make several very deep cuts on both forearms.

My first speculation was that Noise might have targeted Cyndi's arms on purpose, as a way of trying to reduce Cyndi's manual dexterity, and directly attack Ashley's new-found source of self-expression and enjoyment. If that was what she was trying to do, it was unsuccessful - Ashley could still play afterwards, but that didn't rule out Noise experiencing something like jealousy, trying to make sure that she remained the System's only source of happiness and comfort from the stresses of life, and the pain of the Rot.

Turquoise was skeptical that Noise was trying to attack Cyndi's other emotional outlets, and Noise herself didn't elaborate on why she chose the arms over the thighs in this instance - only that she'd been targeting Cyndi's thighs plenty lately, and she felt as though the arms "needed some love."

It all makes me wonder about whether Noise is enough of a personality to possess some kind of subconscious of her own - if she might occasionally act on motivations that she's not entirely aware of.

Much more recent developments have convinced me that it could be a good idea to actively engage with Noise and talk, in as much depth as possible, about her own thinking and motivations. It's possible that she could at least be made to see any contradictions in her own thinking, which could lead to it being easier to secure her cooperation. Of course, since her memories seem to be tied to whichever Colour she is speaking through, it's probable that she might actually forget past conversations and decisions, and need to be reminded a few times before the resolution "sticks."

4: Notes on Family History and Potential Sources of Trauma

Before I even became aware of Palette's DID, my first few conversations with "Cyndi" made reference to the relationship they had with their parents. To say that this relationship didn't strike me as healthy or supportive is an understatement. Her father, in particular, struck me as callous, uncaring, controlling and manipulative, and the more I've learned about him and his behaviour, the more it seems like Cyndi has been going through at least some level of narcissistic abuse for many years now. Subsequent conversations have revealed that while her mother does admit that her Cyndi's father can go too far sometimes, she almost never actually intervenes on Cyndi's behalf. In fact, from Palette's descriptions, she seems so egregiously conflict-avoidant that she would rather something unfair happen to Cyndi (and apologise on her father's behalf later) than actually disagree with her father, or oppose his decisions or behaviour.

In the interests of fairness, Palette has described a single exception to this rule; when she came out as trans, her father was apparently prepared to reject this as nothing but attention-seeking. Her mother was the one who convinced Cyndi's father to accept her transition.

It didn't surprise me when I learned that one of the preconditions for developing dissociative disorders is an unstable or uncertain relationship between children and the people who are supposed to act as their caregivers. I don't know if the treatment they have received while growing up is sufficient for disorganised attachment, but his behaviour doesn't seem restricted to Palette - it seems that all her siblings are subjected to similar upbringings (just to a lesser extent), and at least one (the youngest sister) seems to have developed her own psychologically unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I haven't dug extensively into Cyndi's past during our conversations - it's possible that even some of the Colours may not remember many details - but the idea that her childhood was filled with traumatic incidents and an unhealthy relationship with her parents doesn't seem far-fetched to me, given what has been revealed about their behaviour.

The list I've presented below isn't exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, but I recommend asking the System about at least some of these incidents, in case I've mis-remembered something, or drawn an incorrect conclusion.

Unpleasant Memories Resurfacing

One of my first conversations with Cyndi (before I knew about the Palette system) was about whether or not her complaints about her family were justified, or whether they were an example of Cyndi "just being an angsty teen." She was describing how every time she tried to tell her dad that he was hurting her, he would invariably shut her down, and tell her that it was her own fault. Objections were instantly countered with examples of when she's proved his point correct, and she was always left unable to fight back or state her own case. She asked me whether it was possible that she was just being an "angsty teen" and overreacting to everything her parents did.

Personally, I think even if the System was being an angsty teen, this behaviour still goes beyond the bounds of what would be considered "normal" for a supportive family, or even a relatively strict one, and I told her as much during this conversation. I don't think it would be out of the question for a lot of her psychological problems, including perhaps, her dissociative tendencies themselves, to stem from his treatment of her, his dismissal of her needs and wants, or the fact that her mother doesn't really seem to do anything to defend her, other than apologising for him after the fact ("I'm sorry dad does that" being an especially memorable quote).

What's more concerning is the way some of the Colours defend and excuse his actions. Dandy, in particular, seems to be completely incapable of finding fault with anyone, and would rather insult herself than even consider thinking badly of anyone else. (She has actually defended him by suggesting that he's just "had a bad day," as though that was enough reason to justify taking out his anger and frustrations on a member of his family). During one conversation, Dandy asked me, in a surprised tone, if this behaviour was actually not considered normal. She further defends him by pointing out how hard their father works, and how he occasionally does kind things for Cyndi as well - sometimes surprisingly so.

These conversations usually caused me to spend some time staring at a wall.

I don't really know if it would be possible to actually change her father's attitudes or behaviour through persuasion. I don't know if therapy would help him to regulate his emotions and deal with his anger and possible narcissistic traits. According to Violet, he has said that he would rather go to war than go to therapy, so the possibility seems to have at least been discussed at some point.

Of course, it would be ideal if he could learn how to support her emotionally, or at the very least, learn what behaviours of his cause the most harm so that he can stop doing them. But in order for him to choose to do this, he would need to be convinced that his actions thus far have actually been harmful, and I'm not sure his able to be convinced of this; just about every conversation I've had with the System has suggested that he's extremely reluctant to ever admit wrongdoing under any circumstance, and once again, he is very dismissive of most of Palette's claimed mental health problems.

It's possible the recommendations and guidance of an actual professional could sway his thinking ... but I'm not holding my breath. For the moment, it seems like we might end up having to work around him rather than being able to secure his cooperation.

5: Notes Regarding Personal Relationships

Through no apparent fault of their own, the Palette system has had a history of pretty unreliable interpersonal relationships. While a lot of it could be boiled down to ordinary teenage drama, they have been more socially isolated than what would be considered "normal" these past couple of years. She tends to get along far better with her teachers than the other students and has had trouble holding onto friendships her own age.

They have jokingly referred to a "curse" that has operated pretty consistently since eighth grade; every six months, Palette loses all of her friends, which has forced her to get better at making new ones, but which is still demoralising, and does nothing to help their collective paranoia, or their opinions about themselves. They seem extremely reluctant to tell anyone about their DID, even people with whom they intend on entering romantic relationships with, thinking that it would drive them away.

A lot of this can probably be traced back to the rumours surrounding her at school. She has a reputation that Dandy has described as "beastly," which can probably be traced back to an incident with a person she called "Milo." Palette either didn't describe, or I can't remember, exactly what was said, but they said something that made Milo feel unsafe. They told their parents, the parents told the school board, and Cyndi was promptly suspended until she could produce a medical certificate stating that she wouldn't be a danger to the rest of the school.

There was also an incident in which another friend, who will be referred to as "Apollo", betrayed her trust and "exposed" her self-harm, not only to the school counsellor, but also to the rest of the student body, resulting in even more rumours and gossip, and the almost complete loss of Palette's entire social circle. A number of the people in which the System confided ended up actively shunning her, and while she's been able to keep in touch with some friends online, she seems to have almost nobody offline, in who she can actually confide.

In fact, it seems as though any new friendships that Cyndi tries to form have a tendency to be tainted by memories of previous relationships that have gone wrong somehow, leaving almost every single Colour in the system with an extensive list of trust and self-worth issues that, in my opinion, need to be addressed quickly, so they don't impede progress in other areas of therapy.

Palette's List of Trust and Self Worth Problems

It seems like in recent months, Palette has begun forming more stable friendships online, who know about their DID and cutting problem, and very recently, they have also added two long-time friends, Rachel and Marz, to the Palette Testing Server. As of this writing, I haven't interacted with either of them, but I'm hoping that Palette's slowly regrowing social network will continue being a strong positive influence on them.

At some point, I will probably begin recommending that Palette try to explain about their DID to as many people as possible. It's likely that not many will understand or believe them, but at least this will open up the opportunity for some level of understanding to take place.

6: Other Major Concerns

6.1: Self-Loathing

The majority of this section used to revolve mostly around a few conversations I'd had with Dandy, but I've learned a lot from Ashley and Lavender recently which I think merits inclusion here.

I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that trying to resolve this self-loathing is not only very important, but could potentially be the most important therapeutic goal that any of the Colours could set for themselves. Not just because the self-loathing causes some Colours to be reluctant to seek help, but because I think on some level, the absolutely ridiculous levels of contempt and disgust some of the Colours have for themselves could actually be, either in whole or in part, the source of the Rot.

There were hints about their self-worth issues even before I knew about Palette's DID. The screenshots I've included earlier (describing her father's treatment of her) show what appears to be the re-emergence of suppressed or forgotten memories. Judging from the writing style and the emotes being used, Dandy was the one in control there, and even as she began to recall those memories, she continued trying to defend her father anyway, as though the mere *possibility of him being abusive was something painful or uncomfortable to think about.

The second important conversation I had with Dandy was one which we had shortly before her admission to Vive. As we talked, a picture quickly developed of a girl who was so egregiously high in Trait Agreeableness and so utterly lacking in self-worth that she would never even consider thinking badly about anybody else, even if they seemed to be clearly in the wrong; she would instantly resort to attacking, insulting and berating herself rather than view anybody else in a negative light, and didn't seem to consider this a problem, because "she deserves it.". While there had been hints since April, this conversation was especially troubling because of the sheer difficulty involved in getting Dandy to even consider the possibility that she might not be a monster.

A brief summary of the key takeaways from the conversation is:

During the conversation, I tried to briefly explain the idea that being a good person might mean having the ability to be dangerous, and coupling this with self-restraint, and that this was different from being harmless. I'm fairly sure I rushed that explanation though, because Dandy didn't seem to understand it, and I regret not being able to talk about it more, since I think it's an important lesson for her to learn. Her stay at Vive did absolutely nothing to help correct this warped self-perception, and might have, in fact, made it worse. I think it could be an extremely important focus for future therapeutic work, but anybody trying to help her with it will have to take into account her mental age, and be prepared to explain concepts in a very simple way.

Later conversations suggest that Dandy "deserving" bad things extends to even very extreme (almost ridiculous) hypothetical scenarios. If she were walking down the street to buy pretzels, for instance, and she was attacked from behind for no reason, beaten and robbed, it seems that Dandy would still try to justify the actions of the person that assaulted her.

Hypothetical Robbery

In another conversation the following week, Dandy suggested that she was such a terrible person that she didn't even deserve to die, seemingly because her death would mean a release from her suffering. Instead, Dandy insists that she "deserves" to suffer and be miserable forever. In other words, she seems to believe that she literally deserves to be cast into the Christian hell for all eternity.

Dandy Apparently Deserving Hell

(I find it interesting that she phrased it, "My thoughts tell me," instead of "I think." It might indicate that I've been having a bit of a positive effect on her, and that what I've tried to teach her about distancing herself from these thoughts has actually been working. Then again, I can't really be sure about that. I will definitely have to explore this further, and I don't think I should be the only one doing so).

Violet (now Lavender) and Whitney also seem to be extremely forgiving towards people who do Palette wrong, though these two are less extreme than Dandy. Rojo is on the other end of the spectrum, being very hesitant to forgive wrongdoing, and often standing up against any perceived injustice towards the System (in particular, anyone reading this document might want to ask her about the individual known as Apollo, and the number of chances he was given to prove himself a worthwhile friend. Be prepared for a rant if Rojo or Blake are the ones fronting).

Their own value as people seems to be one of the most important things the System as a whole could learn during therapeutic sessions, and even though I'm not any kind of professional, I intend to continue trying to encourage them to develop a more accurate view of themselves, and also trying to dismantle some of their more egregiously toxic self-beliefs.

I think some kind of assertiveness training would probably be useful, particularly focused on Lavender, Dandy and possibly Whitney, as well as trying to teach Palette to distance themselves from the kinds of self-loathing negative thoughts that I've given examples of above. For example, rather than thinking, "I deserve bad things happening to me," I've encouraged her to start saying, "I think I deserve it when bad things happen to me" to create some distance between her feelings and reality.

7: Noticeable Improvements

I can't say for certain whether these results have been entirely due to speaking with me. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are a number of factors involved in each one, and I'm nearly certain that I can't claim full credit for any one of them. However, I've been able to give the System the following nudges towards what I think are healthier mental attitudes and habits:

Once again, I can't possibly claim full credit for any of these; a number of the most obvious improvements took place during Palette's summer break, and it's likely that the lack of schoolwork was a large factor in her self-harm being slightly easier to manage. I would like to keep building on these in the future though, and any professional advice or support would be greatly appreciated.

8: Open Questions and Speculation

8.1: DID and the Jungian Shadow

More of a philosophical question. Obviously, there are going to be a number of professionals who dismiss Carl Jung's work as worthless quackery, but assuming the concept of the Shadow has any validity, I've often wondered whether each Colour would have their own Shadow, or whether it would be something shared by all of them.

Thinking about the Jungian Shadow also forces me to consider Ashley. It's possible that I might have completely misunderstood what a Shadow is, but my current thinking is that Ashley could have been the Shadow part of Rose's personality, designed to contain all the things that the more dominant part found repulsive or creepy. That part, which still seems to partly identify with being Rose, then became Dandy. By casting Ashley away though, Dandy seems to have lost a great deal of maturity, as well as the ability to understand more complex nuance, and she has only started recovering those things in the last few months, very, very slowly.

(As with all my other conclusions, I could be completely wrong about this; it seems like Ashley can understand a lot more complexity and nuance than Dandy, but I haven't pushed Ashley to find out just how much she can handle, or actually compared the two of them directly, and these tests suddenly strike me as potentially being important.)

I wonder whether there is any research available on how the concept of the Shadow relates to people with DID or other dissociative disorders, and if performing Shadow-work on Dandy, or the rest of the System could help in dismantling the addiction to self-harm.

8.2: The Trope Filled Nature of the Colours

The question of where the personality traits of a lot of the Colours come from.

I've noticed that a lot of their more minor quirks and tics seem to have been pulled directly from Japanese anime, or the Western fandom culture surrounding it. This got me curious about where the personality traits of each Colour come from, and how likely they are to have been pulled from fictitious sources. After all, I imagine the brain has to have had some basis for giving each Colour their individual traits, so these kinds of sources shouldn't be ruled out.

I'm not saying that any of Palette's alters are actually fictives, but more that their traits have some potentially strong parallels with the kinds of media they consumed before The Split.

I also wonder whether these traits, and their associated stereotypes, are the brain's unconscious way of trying to communicate something about Cyndi's potential traumas. I'm especially curious about how this applies to Red Noise. She seems to have been "coded" as a villain. Her speech patterns, the way Violet draws her, the way she laughs, and how insufferably smug she can be all point towards the idea that she was created as an extremely stereotypical "bad guy," which makes me wonder if this was Cyndi's brain's last-ditch attempt at signalling the addiction was something to be fought rather than welcomed.

This ties into the following speculation.

8.3: Prism, and the Possibility of Unconscious Roleplay?

Some time ago, I noticed that a new Proxy had been created in secret within the Discord server that I use to communicate with Palette. It seems to have been given the name "Prism," and its profile picture looks to be a sketch of a unique face, unused by any of the other Colours, glitched so that it's split into magenta, yellow and blue, evoking several Colours merged into a single entity.

I haven't interacted with this "Prism" outside of a single, very brief conversation. What's interesting are the incidents which happened around that conversation, and the potential questions they raised.

The event happened during a conversation with Red Noise. I quickly cut her off as she began messaging me, and told her that I was quite certain another online acquaintance I knew had actually managed to kill themselves. Red Noise's usual demeanour instantly disappeared, and seemed to quickly be replaced by a very different entity, who showed sudden and extremely unexpected concern for my well-being, and insisted on asking whether I, and my acquaintance, were okay.

First, and so far, only interaction with Prism

(I have a folder with the complete conversation in screenshot form which I can send on request)

Blake, who I rarely speak with, shortly fronted, complaining of a splitting headache; it seems that Noise forced her awake and latched onto her in order to continue communicating. When I told Blake to scroll up, she made two interesting observations. She didn't recognise the proxy, suggesting that it had been created with as few Colours co-conscious as possible. She also noted that she could see bits of everyone's writing style in the few sentences Prism spoke. Immediately afterwards, I commented on the fact that it felt, for the first time, as though I was actually talking with a complete and integrated Cyndi, as opposed to the individual Colours, or the persona of Cyndi that Palette normally wears for everyday social interaction.

It was later revealed that Red Noise made Ashley create this Proxy just to mess with me, and while she later describes the incident as "fun," I actually don't know the extent to which she was lying about that. Even if I were to concede that the proxy was just created to mock or mess with me, it still seems like something more than that was happening during that conversation.

Later, as I thought back on this conversation, it occurred to me that what had just happened felt a lot like being in a complex, single-player Alternate Reality Game, and I began wondering whether Cyndi's brain, at some level of awareness much lower than the individual Colours, was actually weaving some sort of deliberate narrative, for some reason or other. I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that Cyndi was faking her DID; I think that judging from my interactions with her since April, it would be far too much trouble to keep everything consistent if she were merely faking the disorder for attention (surely, there would be easier ways to get attention if that's what "Cyndi" wanted).

I did, however, start wondering whether it might be possible that Cyndi's brain created the Palette System and all its constituent Colours, not merely as a kind of defense mechanism, but as a puzzle, which might actually provide clues to helping the System process their past traumas by solving it. A puzzle which none of the Colours are aware of, except in the most vague and hazy way. If that is the case, then engaging with this "narrative" could be the best way to start trying to process the experiences and emotions that led to her DID in the first place.

Of course, the feeling of a "narrative" could just be because Red Noise was deliberately weaving a story in order to make me think I was having a positive effect, or that there might be hope of re-integration, when nothing like this was actually happening.

8.4: Something Other Than DID?

Information has recently come to light that has caused me to start considering the possibility that the diagnosis of DID might be slightly inaccurate in some way; it seems as though Cyndi's case is somewhat unusual for DID, and this might be the reason behind the dismissal of her condition by at least some of the professionals who have looked at her case so far.

While she does seem to meet all the DSM5 criteria (aside from the one about the dissociation causing significant distress and dysfunction), the Palette system appears to lack an "original" identity, seeming to be a system of alters with no "core."

Some of the sources I've been looking at (many of them written by individuals experiencing, or claiming to experience DID themselves) suggest that the "core" or "original" personality should not be confused with the Host (the personality who is most often in control of the body), and that the two are different concepts. I'll have to look more into this, but it seems (as far as I know) that the Core and the Host, while different concepts, are usually the same personality. I've done my best to treat them as separate concepts while coming up with the possibilities below, but the list is still something I'm refining.

To recap: there doesn't seem to be an active "core" personality, and the System is unsure who the "host" (the most active alter) is either.

Finally, there's the concept of alters fusing together, or undergoing further division into new identities; according to the staff at Vive, this just "doesn't happen," and I've not (yet) found any reference to this phenomenon in any medical literature, though other individuals claiming to have been formally diagnosed with DID describe similar phenomena.

These unusual features suggest a few possibilities, which I've outlined below in no particular order. The list is not exhaustive; I'm sure there are other possible scenarios I simply haven't thought of yet, but they're the only ones I've been able to come up with so far:

I do not believe that it's necessary to work out who the Core or Host are in order to control the self-harm problem, but it still might be possible to work out who the Core is (if there is one) via just getting to know them better. Perhaps a Host could be determined just by tracking who is fronting during what times. It also seems to be the case that it's actually possible to distinguish between a Core and an Alter by watching brain activity in an MRI machine, if we want to get high tech about this.

Again, I don't think this should take priority over the more critical theraputic goals, like investigating the Rotting but if one of the Colours is the Core, or if there is an identifiable Host, the information could still be useful to know.

9: Potential Sources of Future Support

Parents

Other DID Communities

Therapy

Romantic Relationships

10: Open Questions and Final Thoughts

I'll mostly be devoting this section to any areas of investigation I think could be important focuses for future therapeutic work, or which I think deserve some extra consideration. Some of them will probably be mostly for my own curiosity, but if you don't think they're important, then they should be relatively easy to filter out.

There are also a couple of recommendations that I think could bring about positive changes in Cyndi's life, and I'll put them in their own section.

Questions:

Recommendations:

11: Contact Information for the Author

I'm aware that this section is probably kind of superfluous, since any serious mental health professional wouldn't be able to directly contact me for confidentiality reasons (and as I've stated above, I'm actually a bit relieved when they handle matters of confidentiality so strictly).

Still...

The author of this document can be contacted at andrew.e.henriquez@gmail.com, or on Discord at PlagueDoctr#8357. Contact hours may vary wildly because of the wildly unpredictable hours of my day job but I should be able to respond within 24 hours.